Everything Else
by WildwingSuz
Summary: He came to her in the dark.


**Author's Notes:** This was inspired by the conversation in bed during IWTB, though it ended up being something entirely different. Inspiration comes from the strangest places and at the oddest times, does it not…?

**Music Notes:** my new "XF Writing" iTunes playlist, which features Moby, Counting Crows, UNKLE, Sia, Three Days Grace, Mark Snow, and Stevie Wonder. Works wonders, it does! (ducking thrown nonfat tofutti rice dreamsicles from bad pun)

**Spoilers: **Very mild for Never Again, all things

**Synopsis:** He came to her in the dark.

HUGE thanks to Cory who took a rough draft and turned it into a real story.  
And for Alia, whose opinion I value more than anyone's.

**Everything Else  
**By Suzanne Feld  
Rated R for adult sexual situations

He came to me in the dark the first time.

It was, of course, after a bad case, one where we'd both cheated death by inches and were alive more by luck than skill. I woke up, startled, to see him standing over my bed. But I didn't reach for my gun; I knew it was him so I just raised and opened my arms. I welcomed him to my body in ways that I could never allow him into my heart or thoughts, holding back nothing of what I felt for him as we made love in the dark, kissing almost constantly with no words passing between us.

The next day it was as if it had never happened, that wild uncontrollable passion in the night, no more than a dream we'd each had and refused to acknowledge. We were the same partners and friends we'd been the day before, and when I did allow myself to think about it, I knew it would never happen again.

But it did. Over and over again as the years flew past.

He only came to my apartment, not a motel room and never turning on a light, sliding naked into my bed and divesting me of whatever I might have been wearing. I knew I could start sleeping naked at home and make it easier for him, but for some perverse reason I never did. Perhaps I just enjoyed knowing he had to work for his pleasure in that one small way as he always made sure I was naked before we began.

He was always gone in the bright of morning, leaving his unmistakable, delicious, musky man-scent and sometimes a few dark hairs on the pillow where his head had rested all-too-briefly. My shadow lover, my secret admirer, unacknowledged yet desperately yearned for those nights he was absent. He never left directly after the act, instead holding me, stroking and comforting me, until I dozed off. While we were in each other's arms I felt like the most desirable, beautiful woman in the world, but I refused to let those feelings linger when daylight came.

I only went to him once, thinking I might make it different between us. But then I lost my nerve afterward and climbed from his bed as soon as he had dozed off, gone as was par for the course with us when he awakened.

Normally I would not have put up with something so uncontrollable in my life, but our midnight trysts were the only times I allowed it. My guilty pleasure, my furtive secret. I didn't let myself dwell on why I permitted and even looked forward to it; at times I am very good at hiding my own motivations and emotions from myself and this was one of them.

I knew things had changed the first time he came to me without a condom; he'd always been so careful and prepared before that. We never spoke during our shadowy trysts and he didn't ask my permission with words this time either; instead he grasped one of my hands and carried it to where his hips were poised above mine so that I felt bare hot flesh instead of slick latex. For an answer I guided him to my entrance and, as his body claimed mine, for the first time I spoke a word.

"Yes."

Of course this happened after we'd discovered I was barren, although I never did give up on a miracle.

But now things had changed beyond our ability to ignore them.

***

"I, uh, I must've fallen asleep," he said, running one hand through his tousled hair and looking over at me uncertainly in the thin, early morning sunlight coming through the windows across the room. "I'm not sure if I should say I'm sorry or not."

We were sitting back against the headboard of my bed, rumpled covers pulled up to our armpits, several inches apart, and staring as if we'd never seen the other before, not been partners for coming up on eight years and secret lovers for nearly half that.

"That does seem a bit unnecessary but I don't know what to say either," I admitted. I hadn't felt this uncomfortable around him since the day I came back to work after the Ed Jerse debacle. In fact it hadn't been long afterward that we'd become lovers—or that Mulder had begun coming to my bed, to be a bit more accurate. Now I wasn't sure what I should do: nonchalantly get up and go shower? invite him to stay? ask him to go? What was I supposed to do in this wholly unexpected situation? Although, of course, we _should_ have anticipated this could happen; more than once I'd been awake and seen dawn creeping around the curtains as he got up, bare skin ruddy against the paleness of my room in the dim light.

And it was clear that he was as clueless and lost as I was in this situation. We were eyeing each other almost furtively when I finally burst out, "This is ridiculous, Mulder! God, we've had each other in every way a man and woman can and we can't even have a morning-after conversation?"

"This is so us," he remarked, grinning crookedly. But then the grin faded and he added, "Is this it, Scully? Is this over between us now?"

Knowing what he meant I sighed heavily, picking at a fold in my peach comforter. "I don't know. We certainly never planned for this contingency."

"We never _planned_ anything."

"_You_ never planned anything when you started coming to my bed, and I never thought I'd have to," I said harshly, looking away. "What in the hell was I thinking, letting this insanity go on so long?"

"That we love each other so much we can't admit it?"

I slowly raised my eyes to his, not sure I'd heard him right. "What?!"

He gazed back at me with calm honesty. "You heard me. That we're so madly in love with each other that we're afraid to admit it. To let go, to let the other into our hearts. Sex, that's easy. Especially in the dark when we don't have to let the other see how we feel. But you know what, Scully?" He turned and took my hands, not drawing me any closer but gazing at me seriously. His broad, golden-skinned shoulders and dark-furred chest seemed to fill my vision. "I'm tired of it. I've been tired of it for a long time. Maybe my subconscious made me stay asleep until it got light out to help me get the courage to say this."

My heart was pounding and I wasn't sure I wanted to hear what he had to say. "Mulder, don't…"

He continued as if I hadn't said anything. "Scully, I love you with all of my heart and soul. You are as much a part of me as my heart or head, matter of fact."

I gazed back at him, breathless. I had known it, I guess, I just didn't want to face it. He was right. Sex I could handle, yes, but these emotions? I didn't want to deal with this.

But could I go on without either?

He was still holding my eyes steadily. "If you don't feel the same way, Scully, I can of course live with that. But I think you love me as intensely as I love you, just as deeply and thoroughly; I think we need to embrace the light and give up the darkness. What do you say?"

Oh, God. As much as I didn't want to deal with a romantic relationship with Mulder—I knew that the continued ditching, narcissism, and bossiness would make me feel even worse than it did now—I felt my barriers weakening. He was also sweet, loving, and thoughtful when he wanted to be, and absolutely amazing in bed. Who knew, perhaps an openly romantic relationship between us would help minimize the bad things; stranger things had happened in our lives, Heaven knew. When I thought about what he did to me in the dark under the covers, then considered what he could do in the light with no constraints, I felt my knees get weak; I'd have fallen if I wasn't already sitting down.

The mattress moved beside me as he let go of my hands and I looked up to see him getting out of my bed, shoulders slumped. I then realized that I'd been sitting there thinking for minutes and had unconsciously looked away, and he'd likely thought that it was a silent no.

I jumped from my side and stood at the foot of the bed between it and the door, blocking his escape with my naked body. The puppy-dog eyes he raised to me were sad, defeated. "Scully, I'm not going to—"

Lifting one hand I covered his mouth and, with the other, reached up and shook his bare shoulder. "Mulder, shut up. I got lost in thought and it wasn't because I was going to say no. It's more that I'm… concerned… with how this would go. We're not the best people at relationships, you know?" He was still looking down at me with those sad eyes as I removed my hands from him. Then I shrugged. "But I guess there's only one way to find out."

His eyes dipped when I shrugged, then rebounded to my face looking hopeful. "You mean it?"

"Yeah. We'll have to keep this separate from work, but I think we'll do that, at least, just fine. It's everything else that I worry about."

He reached out tentatively and stroked my hair on one side but didn't touch me anywhere else. "For once in my life, Scully, I want to work at it, at a relationship. I don't expect you to just put up with my crazy shit—I know I'll have to change some things and I can do that. Just be patient with me, okay?"

I couldn't resist anymore and stepped forward to lean against his warm, hard body. His strong arms wrapped around my shoulders and we clung together at the foot of my bed. "So, uh, you want to see what sex in the light is like?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

_finis_


End file.
